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Few Teens Clash With Friends

by Julie Ray, Contributing Editor

Those who are often angry argue more often

When it comes to getting along with their friends, most teens
appear to play well with others.

In a recent Gallup Youth Survey*, teens were asked how often
they argue with their friends, and, if they had boyfriends or
girlfriends, how often they argued with them. In both cases,
majorities of teens describe harmonious relationships. Fifty-seven
percent of teens say they rarely argue, and 15% say they
never argue, with their friends. Among teens with
boyfriends or girlfriends, 40% say they rarely argue with their
significant others and 36% say they never argue. Roughly a
quarter in each situation say they argue often or
sometimes.

The percentage of teens who say they rarely or never argue with
their friends surprises Andrea Brandt, a licensed psychotherapist
who specializes in anger management and relationship issues. "But a
lot of teens come from homes where they were 'taught' to suppress
their feelings; where parents never gave them the tools necessary
to learn to express their anger," Brandt says. "They need to learn
that anger is normal, and if they are given the tools early, kids
would be much more proficient at dealing with anger when they grow
up."

David, a 17-year-old Youth Survey respondent, says he argues
with his friends probably once every two weeks. "In our group [of
friends], I guess people get into little fights, like two people
will be arguing about stuff and it becomes the whole group's
problem." A situation like that came up two weekends ago, he says.
"A couple of our friends were fighting, so we had everybody sit
down in one room and just kind of talk about what was bothering
them. And by having everybody sit down and say what they were mad
about, what got their feelings hurt, we kind of got everything out
in the open and everybody felt better."

Boyfriends and Girlfriends

Teens generally don't argue often with their friends, but
teens with significant others are more likely to say they
never argue with their boyfriends or girlfriends. Equal
percentages of boys and girls who have significant others say they
never argue.

Brandt says that child-parent relationships always inform early
relationships with the opposite sex -- which can be one reason
teens avoid conflict with boyfriends or girlfriends. "If a girl,
for instance, always wanted to please her father, earliest
relationships with boys will most likely carry the same
demeanor."

Nyssa, a 15-year-old Youth Survey respondent, says she and her
boyfriend hardly ever argue over serious things. "It's little
things like 'you don't have to go do this if you don't want to' --
that sort of thing," she says. "They're not really arguments, he's
just letting me know that I'm free to make my own decisions." When
a subject does come up, she says, one of them cracks a joke about
it and they move on.

The Anger Quotient

A majority of teens say they get angry at least sometimes (see
"U.S. Teens Walk Away From Anger" in Related Items) -- but only 11%
say they get angry often. However, these teens are more likely to
say they argue with their friends. A majority of teens who report
being angry often also say they argue often (18%) or sometimes
(34%) with their friends. It makes sense to Brandt. "It must just
be their normal demeanor," she says. "Some parents address
everything from a rough, loud place and kids grow up thinking
that's normal."

*These results are based on telephone interviews with a
randomly selected national sample of 1,028 teenagers in the Gallup
Poll Panel of households, aged 13 to 17, conducted Jan. 17
to Feb. 6, 2005. For results based on this sample, one can say with
95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and
other random effects is ±3 percentage points. In addition to
sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in
conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of
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